More dinosaur news (11/2000)

[bh480@scn.org]

From: Ben Creisler bh480@scn.org
Subject: More dinosaur news (11/2000)

Here are a number of dinosaur-related news stories that I 
have noticed on the web in the past week:

http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/dino19.html
The political side of Paul Sereno's finds in Niger.

http://www.iuinfo.indiana.edu/ocm/releases/dinosaur1100.htm
Rare Middle Jurassic dino tracks from Wyoming

http://www.sciam.com/2000/1200issue/1200motani.html
Scientific American article about ichthyosaurs by Ryosuke 
Motani

November 17, 2000, Friday 
Scientists find 'missing links' in Utah
(Scripps Howard News Service)
by JOHN SERFUSTINI 
Paleontologists from the College of Eastern Utah have 
discovered the fossilized bones for two new genus and 
species of giant, plant-eating dinosaurs. 
Five bone specimens belonging to the dinosaur family known 
as brachiosaur were found in a quarry about 20 miles south 
of Price, where they have been entombed for about 100 
million years, said John Bird. 
Bird is in charge of field excavations and supervisor of 
laboratory work for the Prehistoric Museum in Price. The 
other dinosaur was a new species and genus of an 
ankylosaur from the same period. 
"The discoveries are significant because they come from 
the lower Cretaceous, and there is relatively little known 
about that period," Bird said. "Brachiosaurs and 
ankylosaur lived during the Jurassic Period and the later 
Cretaceous. Now we have evidence they lived during the 
Lower Cretaceous as well. These are missing links." 
Bird and museum director Don Burge presented their 
findings last month to an international gathering of 
scientists at the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology in 
Mexico City. 
"Between the two (discoveries) we were pretty much the 
center of attention among those of our expertise - the 
sauropods," said Bird. 
In the past decade, Bird said, paleontologists found nine 
new species and genus of dinosaurs in southeastern Utah, 
with the most famous being Utahraptor found in 1991 near 
Moab. The area is renowned as a repository of dinosaur 
fossils.
The recent bones come from the Price River II quarry. 
Professional and amateur paleontologists have recovered 
around 400 bones belonging to the unnamed brachiosaurs, 
enough to provide a remarkably complete description of the 
creatures. 
Researchers identified one juvenile, three average adults 
and one much bigger individual. 
The brachiosaurs had a posture resembling that of a modern 
giraffe, with the neck extending vertically and front 
limbs slightly longer than the hind ones. The dinosaurs 
were much larger than giraffes.